Biodiversity Net Gain Supplementary Planning Document

Following public consultation the Council has now adopted a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) on Biodiversity Net Gain. This SPD provides further guidance for developers, applicants and ecological consultants on how planning applications can satisfy the requirement for delivering Biodiversity Net Gain within Doncaster.

Since the publication of the statutory regulations further statutory guidance on Biodiversity Net Gain has been published by government. More information on the requirements under mandatory biodiversity net gain are available on the Mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain page.

The adoption version of the Council’s Supplementary Planning Document on Biodiversity Net Gain and a Consultation Statement prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations (2012), can be found below:

Since publication it has been noted that there is a small mistake in paragraph 3.1.2 of the document. River assessments are not needed for developments within 10m of the vast majority of ditches. An exception to this may be some heavily engineered ditches that act as part of the river system. The following sentence:

"Any development within 10m of the bank top of a river/stream/canal/ditch will need a river assessment"

Should read:

"Any development within 10m of the bank top of a river/stream/canal will need a river assessment."

Please note, the biodiversity offsetting contribution fee has been increased (10%) from 1 April 2023 in line with the Council's wider review of Fees and Charges for 2023/24 as part of the budget setting process. The biodiversity offsetting contribution fee is now therefore £27,500 per unit (or part thereof - i.e. if 0.5 units are required the fee would be £13,750). This supersedes the fee quoted in theSPD. Please also note the use of Biodiversity Offsetting Contribution fees is only applicable to planning applications submitted prior to the introduction of Mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain. The Council has provided additional information for applications subject to the new statutory regulations under Mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain.

Biodiversity Net Gain Supplementary Planning Document (Adoption Version): Download (506KB - PDF)

Biodiversity Net Gain SPD - Consultation Statement: Download (481KB - PDF)

Biodiversity Net Gain SPD - Adoption statement: Download (236KB - PDF)

Further Information

Section 3.5 of the SPD provides temporary guidance on how to assign strategic significance in Biodiversity Metric Calculations. Since the publication of the SPD, new guidance has been provided in Table 8 of the Statutory Metric User Guide, that sets out how strategic significance values should be assigned where the Local Nature Recovery Strategy has not yet been published. City of Doncaster Council has therefore published revised guidance on this topic. Planning Policy Guidance: Assigning Strategic Significance for applications subject to mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain. Applications subject to mandatory net gain should follow this guidance in carrying out their net gain calculations. Applications submitted prior to mandatory Net Gain coming into force can use either the guidance above or that previously published in the SPD.

The Biodiversity Metric also requires strategic significance to be determined for rivers and streams, with either a ‘high’ or ‘low’ strategic significance being assigned in the Biodiversity Metric. If the enhancement of a river feature can be considered to be helping towards the delivery of river restoration actions and objectives identified within the relevant River Basin Management Plan, Catchment Plan or Catchment Planning System then it should be given high strategic significance. In addition, how strategic significance is defined for rivers and streams may be updated in due course as the LNRS is developed and further information on that will be provided here in due course.

Links to some of the relevant documents to consult in assigning strategic significance of Rivers and Streams are shown below:

Humber River Basin Management Plan data

Don and Rother Operational catchment data

Don and Rother Catchment Story map

Idle and Torne Operational catchment data